Canada, Japan, and the Pacific: Cultural Studies

Undergraduate core course
UBC-Ritsumeikan Academic Exchange Program, University of British Columbia
2018 - 2020

This course—organized and taught by Ayaka Yoshimizu—offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the cultures of Canada and Japan, and the interrelations between them. Specific topics vary from year to year but will include themes such as constructing the past; nationalism; self-perceptions; cross-cultural perceptions; multiculturalism in Canada and Japan; images in architecture, film and literature; mythologies

For the past three years, I have lectured in this course on topics of Canadian-Japanese resource relations. Specifically, my contribution to ATSU201 has focused on the intertwined political economy of hydraulic fracturing and liquefied natural gas (LNG) between Canada and Japan, and how the geopolitics of energy fits within ongoing debates on decarbonization, environmental protection, and Indigenous sovereignty.